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Mike Smith answered his newsroom phone expecting to talk with a reader. That’s commonplace when his editorial cartoons are published in the 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÃâ·ÑApp Sun, as callers either reach out with a compliment or criticism.

A new chapter. A new beginning.

A 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÃâ·ÑApp university is making people smile after staging a photo shoot with a figure well-known to students and alumni at one of its empty libraries on campus.

While the 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÍòÄÜ¿Æ´ó campus is closed because of coronavirus concerns, nobody is using the Lied Library — save for one dutiful skeleton.

On March 17, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak closed all businesses not essential to public life in 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÃâ·ÑApp for a minimum of one month.

Sometimes the best chroniclers of history are just regular people armed with a Brownie — or a Polaroid, an Instamatic, a 35mm point-and-shoot or, these days, a digital camera or cellphone — taking family photos.

A swimming pool fenced against an expanse of empty desert; an aerial view of seemingly infinite suburbia; a flooded wash; black ribbons of highway on-ramps. This is the 51³Ô¹ÏÍøÃâ·ÑApp—both mundane and exquisite, yet always monumental in its mastery of hostile land—local photographer Aaron Mayes is recording for posterity.